Death from Within: Viewing the Black Lives Matter issue from a different perspective

The intersection of issues may be countering the movement's effectiveness.

BLM’s effectiveness

There’s a reason why many African-Americans may not be able to solidly throw all their weight behind a movement like Black Lives Matter (BLM). On the surface, it deals with the classically, historical issue of violent, state-imposed oppression. That seems innocent enough, but what undergirds the movement is what tends to draw scrutiny from some critics in the black community. While black lives certainly do matter, there are far more equally imperative issues that plague the community besides police violence and murder. Much of what ails the community emanates from our core and manifests itself in the form of self- hatred, self-abuse and self-murder. With this being a far more du jour and relevant angle, BLM continues to draw formidable heat despite its best efforts.

Under the microscope

For starters, its primary backer is some rich, white guy (Soros) who views himself as some sort of Messianic figure…(his words, not mine). Also, there are many of African-Americans who also take issue with the gender politics and sexual orientations of the movement’s 3 founders, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors. However, while they are passionate about the wholesale murder of and low value placed on black lives in mainstream America, many onlookers are faced with the greater issue of the movement’s validity. Many are left asking the very serious question of whether any movement can force us to address the value we place on our own lives as African-Americans when it comes to self-sabotaging issues, such as, black-on-black crime and abortion...the latter of which cuts deep into the fabric of feminist rhetoric. The BLM movement appears to confound its own efforts, in this respect.

The greatest threat

The African-American community is racked with many internal issues that stem from a system of racism that started with the beginning of slavery that was instituted in the early 1619, all the way until the present day. Given, countless strides have been made to destroy all of the more blatant evils of racism that existed in American society, like Jim Crow. However, there are still the less overt forms of black destruction that exist, including the deadly manifestations of our own self-loathing, the greatest of these being #Abortion.

Death from within

According to BlackGenocide.org, more African-Americans have been destroyed by abortion than street violence, AIDS and cancer. They report that since 1973, 15.5 million black babies have been aborted. Compared to current black population numbers, that would make up around 33% of the entire black population. According to BlackDemographics.com, in 2010, racially, black women accounted for over 30% of all abortions made in the U.S. Many of these abortion statistics stem from other issues that exist as a result of racist conditioning, such as black relationship instability, which, in 2008, accounted for 85% of all unwanted pregnancies by unmarried women. Based upon these statistics, it appears that the most dangerous place for a black child is not in the streets of Chicago, but within the womb.

Picking up the pieces

As stated, the issue of abortion is just one of a great many internal issues that African-Americans need to address when embarking upon the very righteous mission of asserting the worth of black lives. BLM can be considered to be just one arm of a universal revolutionary struggle. To expect this one movement to address every atrocity would break its very back. The black community needs to become more realistic about the hell that it inflicts upon itself as a result of the centuries of violence and injustice it has endured and begin to focus on reversing the effects of these injustices. There is nothing wrong with judging the injustice of a matter, such as racism, so long as we don’t do it in hypocrisy. #Black Lives Matter#Intersectionalism

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